If stadium is done right, Chargers, city, taxpayers can benefit

In the ongoing debate over a new stadium for the San Diego Chargers, the bottom-line question comes down to this: At a time when San Diego already has so many unmet infrastructure needs — horrible roadways, leaky water and sewer lines and more — how do you justify the use of public resources to help build a home for a team controlled by very wealthy people?

And here is the bottom-line answer: If done right, what the public gains could be far greater — in real jobs and real dollars — than what it spends.

Petco Park, the home of the Padres, and the adjacent Ballpark District are one way of doing it right.

With $275 million of its $411 million cost paid for by the city, Petco was approved by San Diego voters in 1998 with the campaign promise that it would be “more than a ballpark.” And it is. Since it opened in 2004, the rundown East Village neighborhood of warehouses and vacant buildings has been literally transformed into one of San Diego’s hottest neighborhoods, with ancillary development that will top $4.2 billion in private investment when completed. An analysis prepared a few years ago for the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. said that through sales, property and hotel room taxes, Petco had generated a 7.6 percent return on investment for the city, far greater than originally projected.

Now the question is whether the city and taxpayers should be willing to help the Spanos family, the wealthy owners of the Chargers, with construction of a stadium likely to cost at least $800 million.

Within reason, our answer is, “Darn right.” That’s especially so given the possibility that taxpayers’ contribution might be largely limited to contributing the proceeds of the sale of two underutilized city parcels — Qualcomm Stadium in Mission Valley and the sports arena site in the Midway District. An analysis examines this possibility on page SD3.

If that’s what it takes, this public contribution seems absolutely within reason.

This is particularly so given that an NFL team doesn’t just provide and create thousands of direct and indirect jobs, boosting the local economy. An NFL team keeps a city in the national eye. More than 50 million people watched a first-round playoff game last weekend in an era in which a cable show is a hit if it has 2 million viewers.

People who live in San Diego may take its allure for granted. But every time a game is broadcast from here, and our beautiful beaches, vibrant downtown and wonderful city are showcased, it helps our brand. It makes not just tourists want to visit but talented people want to come to live here. And when late fall and winter arrives, and when Americans in vast swaths of the nation endure subfreezing conditions, these broadcasts make San Diego seem like heaven on Earth.

This matters. Just ask hoteliers.

To those who see professional sports as a trivial and unimportant diversion — or who can’t digest the idea that public assistance to wealthy individuals or corporations is ever defensible — we know these arguments will seem outlandish.

But there is a group of San Diegans who may scoff at public help for the Chargers for the wrong reason: the frustration they’ve faced as fans over the past decade. These folks have watched a team with many individual stars (LaDainian Tomlinson, Drew Brees, Philip Rivers, Shawne Merriman, Antonio Gates, to name just a few) that rarely seemed to play up to its potential, never making it past the AFC championship game. In 2011, when Jets coach Rex Ryan said he could have won a couple of Super Bowls with the Chargers’ roster, these fans didn’t stick up for then-coach Norv Turner; they agreed with Ryan. Over the years, their familiarity with the team has bred indifference.

We invite this group to stand back and look at the big picture. There are only 32 NFL teams and only 30 metropolitan areas with NFL teams. There are many cities that yearn for a team. And there are many billionaires eager to buy and relocate teams, even as the price of a franchise keeps ascending.

NFL membership is something we should strive to maintain — even if fans face occasional or even frequent frustration.

An NFL team provides a bonding point and a rallying point for a community — something to talk about for people with wildly different backgrounds and lives.

And what can’t be emphasized enough is that a franchise, once lost, might never be regained. Consider the saga of Los Angeles. Twenty years ago, both the Rams and the Raiders left the nation’s second-biggest metropolitan area.

It was a given in sports circles that the NFL vacuum wouldn’t — couldn’t — last long. How could a league with teams in places like Green Bay, Charlotte and Jacksonville not be in giant, influential, legendary L.A.?

Twenty years later, Los Angeles still doesn’t have a team. San Diego needs to avoid this fate.

If we can keep the Chargers in town without higher taxes or annual subsidies, let’s get on with it.

Civic lethargy must not cost us our membership in one of the world’s greatest and most elite clubs.